Issues Views Reviews

Hey Baby Movie Review

August 27, 2007

They say that Heyy Baby has been inspired by the Hollywood flick, Three Men and a Baby…I don’t know whether that’s true as I haven’t seen the Hollywood film. So, what’s the movie about? Three men and a baby?

Yep, that’s right.

Casanovas Arush (played by Akshay Kumar), Ali (Fardeen Khan) and Tanmay (Ritiesh Deshmukh) are living it up in Sydney, Australia. They hold down cool jobs – Arush is a manager of a night club, Tanmay is an entertainer and Ali a guy who makes money from betting. They certainly seem to have a lot of money as they live in a swanky place and spend most of the time drinking, partying and sleeping around with beautiful girls. Love and marriage are words they scorn.

Everything changes when a little baby arrives on their door-step. Their world is torn apart as they desperately try to bring the situation (and the baby) under control. Being totally clueless about babies, their attempts lead to some hilarious scenes. If a question haunts them (who is the father of the baby??) it soon recedes into the background as they get increasingly involved with the little girl. There are some rather touching scenes as these three rakes, used to breaking a girl’s heart in the wink of an eye, get all choked up over a baby. They may have hated the baby at first, but these feelings eventually turn to love! If that’s a trifle difficult to believe, well, these things happen in movies!

Actually, the movie is so funny and all the guys put up such a good comic act and have such good chemistry with each other, that it doesn’t matter how unbelievable it all seems. Director Sajid Khan carries the audience along with him. And the baby certainly helps. A cute little damsel with an expressive face. The guys were not as good in the serious scenes, except for Fardeen Khan. Akshay was not at all convincing in the emotional scenes.

What’s disappointing is that the comedy more or less ends with the first half. Sure, there are some comic scenes in the second half too, but I didn’t like them as much as those in the first half. Anyway, the second half has a lot of Bollywood melodrama, and is designed to extract a few tears. I can enjoy Bollywood melodrama…but I felt that it was rather overdone here. Even the comedy in the second half was less natural and was at times rather gross! Specially the scene with the three guys in the shower together. There were parts in the second half that dragged as well…

And what was Vidya Balan doing in the film? Well she was missing in the first half, which is replete with scores of pretty women (the guys’ gals) ranging from Malaika Arora and Neha Dhupia to Diya Mirza, Koena Mitra and Ria Sen. None of them have any role at all except for traipsing around on the screen in mini-skirts, dancing with these three ‘studs’. Vidya Balan, enters the scene in the second half…as Esha, the mother of the baby. I liked her in the film. She acts in a restrained way and comes across as a strong, determined sort who will not stand for any nonsense, not even from the man she loves. Her lack of histrionics is unusual in a bollywood film, but I liked her acting. Her eyes are expressive and her expressions say it all.

The music (Shankar Ehsaan Loy) was average, but some of the songs like ‘Ishq Mohabbat’ were well choreographed. Oh yes. Shah Rukh puts in a short appearance at the fag end of the movie. Half a song. That’s it. And I almost forgot to mention Boman Irani. He plays Esha’s father. He’s funny, and acts alright, but he’s getting boring in such roles.

Overall, this movie is okay ‘time-pass’ – certainly not a must-see. It’s one of those movies one can catch on a lazy Sunday if there is nothing else to do. If one thinks of the movie as fare dished out by a first-time director, one can even call it good. But it’s best not to expect too much. Whether you like it or not finally depends on what you expect and on your mood that day!

Rambodoc, Yeah you were lucky to escape during the intermission! But I think when people copy ideas this is what happens. The basic idea wasn’t Sajid Khan’s (which automatically makes him a second or third level director, for even accepting such an assignment). Then he must have tried to incorporate some original scenes which resulted in a hotch potch. Neither a comedy nor a true bollywood melodrama!
Bharath, you echoed my feelings about the baby. I just loved that baby! I don’t know what they did to make the baby act so well…maybe it was some gimmick. I heard they used a lot of those in the movie.

JV maybe it went into spam, but I don’t know how! Unfortunately today I deleted my spam without checking it properly. Sorry about that.
Actually I was disappointed with the movie too, but yes, I found the first half a bit of decent time-pass. Guess wanted to waste my sunday! :)

You know, I haven’t seen a lot of the Bollywood cinema, but I have noticed that you can often see the plot of a hollywood flick torn raw and bleeding and inserted in them, with a few dance sequences inserted. Is that how they normally work? Is it an inherent lack of creativity in the industry?

Hey Justin, the truth is that a lot of bollywood cinema is copied, and I wish I could give a ball park figure like say 50% or 70% but no one really knows I think.
But the rest of the movies are not copied and many of these movies are absolutely fantastic. So I do not think there is an inherent lack of creativity, but the fact that there are a lot of people who want to make a quick buck. Taking a tried and tested formula and making it work is less risky for them. Such people bring a bad name to the industry and in fact the word bollywood says it all! It is really sad because great talent also co-exists with these re-makes.
Many bollywood films btw are produced with black money, and often producers know little about cinema. They pick saleable stars, copy a script, and think they can make some money. Actually they do, because the majority of Indians do not see hollywood movies. Its really a sad situation!

Prerna, thanks for the info! Now I know why the first half was better than the second half! really, these guys should be ostracized by the industry!

Just a technical note… you have misspelled (actually grammatical correct) the title of the movie in the post title ans so it does not appear in the Google while searching with the actual name of the movie… rest assured

JV, I did that deliberately because from the poster I realised that the real spelling is different. And I did it because I felt that most people when searching would misspell it. I would have if I was searching for the review. In fact if I had not downloaded the picture of the poster, i would not have known the real spelling, even after seeing the movie!
btw, I think my idea has worked. ;)
You can see its been the top post for 2 days now. :D

LOL, Common sajid doesnt deserve such severe lashings nor does the movie… and the actors……agreed it is another bollywood movie filled with unrealistic quotients ….but the purpose of the movie is just to entertain ….it is supposed to be a bollywood mirch masala to cater to the needs of the majority of our country……so based on that factor…the movie has been well made……..and it is very much possible to sit through the entire movie and enjoy it too …….which is not a possibility in most of the hindi movies and english ones too…..

I feel this is one of the worst movies made this year. This I can say because, the star cast used was wasted. ppl like Akshay Kumar, Riteish Deshmukh, Vidya Balan were wasted in this movie. The dialogues were cheap. In the first half an hour Sajid Khan tried to show that S*x was the only thing in life which one can live on. One more thing I would like to add, the scene where the diaper with the potty of the kid is shown on Akshay’s face was perhaps the worst scene filmed in a hindi cinema. Its looks so bad, u see the brown shit on screen. Pathetic.

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